Healthcare Data Analytics

Cloud Analytics

Move at the speed of the market.

Can you afford to wait 3-6 months for a new data and analytics infrastructure? In today’s rapidly changing healthcare landscape, the answer is a resounding “no.”

Post-ACA, legacy data analytics solutions are simply no match for the newly pressing need to respond to changing market demands and recognize opportunities and risks quickly. With greater business agility, faster data analytics capabilities and better business outcomes waiting in the “cloud,” healthcare organizations considering the transition to cloud or hybrid cloud data analytics platforms are poised to capture a competitive advantage along with potentially significant cost-savings. A successful shift requires:

Anchoring on specific business goals

Designating an end-to-end business process owner

Starting small and simple

Airtight data governance

An intentional shift to a culture based on data-driven decision making

Start with Value

The cost of hardware and infrastructure for a traditional “on-prem” data analytics solution is about 25% higher. For many healthcare companies, that’s a figure entirely too enticing to ignore. But when an organization’s reason for jumping on the cloud bandwagon is primarily driven by cost savings, it’s a recipe for failure.

To successfully complete the shift, healthcare companies need to tie specific business goals to a cohesive cloud strategy. It’s important to begin any initiative with a clear business use case and the early establishment of metrics to measure and monitor the business value throughout.

Business Processes as Assets

Business processes today transcend multiple applications and if there’s not an owner of each end-to-end business process, confusion ensues. To effectively adopt a cloud environment, companies need to designate a single, end-to-end business process owner with a comprehensive understanding of how each system interacts and how different stakeholders work together in order to truly manage business processes as assets. Done right, this not only creates a level of order that prevents mistakes, improves consumer or provider experience and reduces costs but can also help to establish a strong competitive advantage.

Small and Simple Beginnings

While a cloud data analytics solution has many benefits, managing a multi-environment application with a mix of “on-prem,” “private cloud,” and “public cloud” infrastructures is no small feat. Starting with a grand plan to create a seamless, interoperable, multi-environment infrastructure where applications talk to each other and data is shared and synchronized across the entire IT ecosystem is usually too much, too soon. Starting small and simple with a proof of concept project that can deliver initial business value within a few weeks and scale as capability expands is much more likely to lead to long-term success.

Prioritize Data Governance

Data governance isn’t glamorous, but as a mission-critical asset in determining the market position and financial performance of today’s healthcare companies, data management can’t be ignored or neglected. Organizations need to make sure that they have a data governance program that maintains responsible oversight of secure “on-prem” and cloud data storage environments with strong protocols for sharing data internally and externally, and effectively taking advantage of data assets for both tactical and strategic decision making.

Establish a Data-Driven Mindset

The key to extracting value from cloud data analytics adoption is how effectively the senior executive team can translate insights from data analytics into actual organizational change. It requires an overall shift in cultural expectations around the speed of data, insights and the resulting changes to workflows and business processes that can be jarring for an industry used to staying the course.

The shift to a data-driven mindset necessitated by cloud-based analytics needs to be carefully managed and should begin with full alignment between IT and business leaders on the rationale of the project and the agreed upon business goals. Aligning incentives with desired behavioral changes is an important next step.

A Trusted Cloud Partner

With over a decade of experience in implementing cloud data analytics solutions in both private and public cloud platforms, Amitech has invested significant time in building both technical PaaS and SaaS data analytics solutions as well as the change management skills necessary to address the cultural challenges of cloud adoption. Our additional expertise includes:

Nuanced understanding of healthcare business

Extensive expertise in Big Data cloud platforms and software

Combining both internal and external data including real-time device data streaming, social determinants of health data, third party psychographic and demographic data, behavioral health data and clinical/claims data in a cloud environment